When I looked at bringing my Wave up to racing standards for another year, I decided it was time to buy a new one. In the process I have learned at least 2 things.

#1)Hobie needs to offer a Wave SE model. At a minimum a club with EPO rudders. Pentex sails and a bias cut tramp would be nice.

In my case it was a lot cheaper to buy a Classic and replace Tramp than order a Club(the Classic had cheap shipping). It's turning out that swapping parts(EPO rudders, Tramp) is more work than I expected.


#2) My compliments to Hobie on actually being able to sell me a boat. There are a lot of cool 14 ft Cats on the internet and tested in magazines(Topaz, NACRA 460, Goodall 430, etc) but have you ever stood there with money in hand and tried to buy one? There was a Wave in stock at KO or I could have ordered one and expected delivery in a couple of weeks. The only other certain delivery was a IFG Cheshire and all their boats are built to order. NACRA is FUBAR and the rest were ?

And I thought it would be less work to buy a new boat.

When I started to tighten the the club tramp, the forward part of the tramp track on the starboard hull started to pull away from the hull. I checked and the 4 forward screws were just in plastic. After talking with the dealer I pulled the starboard seat pad and inspection port an found the aluminium backing plate was drilled but it was bent and the 4 forward screws didn't touch it and the forward most screw was missing. It took about 4 hours to reinstall the 5 scres and to check and seal all the rest.

This is a novice boat. Most owners would not have known what was going on. However, they probably would have learned that sailing back with a partial tramp sucks.

Surprise, the shrouds and forestay are different from all previous Hobie sets and the mast tang is about a inch higher than my old mast. To get the right mast rake is going to take a double chain plate on the forestay and chainplates on the shrouds.

I should know if I got everything right soon. The NWS is predicting 20-25 kts and 60 degrees for Wed Night.

Kind of like Hobie to change things up without saying anything. Sometimes for better sometimes not. Where are you located?

How's the water, Carl? Is the oil spill as bad as they made it look on the news?

Mike

As oil spills go, this one is well contained. It probably helps that the shipping, oil management, oil containment, and the wildlife rescue all live relatively close to the oil spill.

The bad news is, the spill is on one he best Cat Sailing spots around, the Texas City Dike. It is essentially a huge 5 mile jetty into Galveston Bay. The leeward side has flat water and good winds. The windward side is a ship channel going to the refineries and chemical plants in Texas City. Further windward on the ship channel(south) is Galveston Island and the shipping entrance to Galveston Bay and the inter-coastal waterway. Between Galveston Island and the Dike are islands and salt water marshes where birds nest and the fish and shrimp breed. So, it's a very bad location for a spill but so far they are handling it.

I won the Wed Night Race in Portsmouth last night, I was the only boat to finish. I was a minute late to the start because ~3 mins to the start, in a wild puff, the bottom batten split its' plastic pocket and was sticking out about 4 inchs. I could not tack at low speed and there was no room to gybe.

My new boat has definite opinions about how it wants me to sail and this was with old tramp, EPO rudders and Calvert sail. It was the 3rd time around before we starting sync'ing. So, much for one design boats being the same.

Some friends on a C Scow had bad night. They flipped and lost the lead. Their mast broke in a wild puff. While being towed in by a Catalina that had broken their boom, the Catlina's motor mount snapped and the motor fell off in the channel. They had to paddle back, into the wind. Finally, after I finished the race, I cut them off to claim the coveted first boat back to the dock spot. At the award's I gave them my prize.

Hello. I just bought a Wave too. It should be at the Dallas Dealer next week, but I will be out of the country until May - bummer.
I live a few miles from the Dike, and look forward to lots of good sailing..

What kind of trailer setup do you have?

I have a Sportsman that was made for Waves. The company is gone now. There is company in Kemah that makes welded aluminum trailers that could make a nice flat bed.

Rick White (owner of this site and Wave guru) swears by using flatbeds for Wave trailers. His logic is hard to beat.

I've seen lots of different things work well, including one of those folding trailers from Harbor Freight.

Let us know what you end up doing.

Mike

I have played with the idea of building a general purpose cat trailer based on a flat bed. Start with a welded aluminum utility trailer
(make the top of the box even with the fenders)

Add mast supports and deck the top with wood, to carry the boat. The "box" is now a big cat box. I determined that a 8x10 ft decked area could carry any boat I own.

The exact configuration would depend on who was building it. It is a lot cheaper to modify an existing model than have a custom trailer built.

I use this Utility Trailer with 7ft deck planks across the front and rear. With the boat above, I put the mast sections, sail bag, rudders, etc. underneath, bungeed to the mesh floor.
I took my boat from Indy to Key Largo for Nationals two years ago on it.
And I have a handy trailer for hauling stuff when my boat's on the beach.